These are my favorite trips of the year. I plan to be teaching at each. They sell out quickly each year, so register as soon as you can. One starts right after the other.

Dave Wyman and I teach each workshop, but each is registered by and paid to a different organization, and each organization usually forgets to mention the other trip. Be sure to register for both and double your fun, but adding only a few days to your total time away from home.

These aren't old-fashioned workshops where we waste all day staring at computers in a motel. They more accurately are photo tours, where we run from dawn to nightfall every day shooting out in the field. Dave and I will be at your side the whole time for as much one-on-one as you like; far more helpful than boring classroom sessions.

Blue is the measured response of my unequalized desktop audio system, orange is the target flat response (you can set it anywhere you like), and green shows what the software calculates my system's response will be after using the correction filter it generates.

Finally, simple and powerful software that's allowed me in just minutes to optimize the sound of my computer audio system better than I have after many years of traditional work.

Personally, the X100S still rules. This X-A1 is more of a fluff piece with no finder and limited external controls like most digital cameras. The X100S will be hard to out-do, but hey, since all digital cameras are disposable anyway, the X-A1 looks like a real winner.

16 September 2013, Monday

Ninth Anniversary: Nikon F6

Nikon's best full-frame camera, and the world's best 35mm SLR, is still the Nikon F6, announced on 16 September, 2004. In 2004 the F6 sold for $2,400, and today still sells for $2,450 new or $1,250 used: only $100 a year to own the unbeaten F6.

As the latest example of digital rot, the Nikon D2X was announced the same day. You people tripped over yourselves to pay $5,500 a pop, and today, no one even can remember it anymore. Today on eBay, they sell for $600: a loss of $4,900. Great investment, eh? Digital sure saves money over film.

Canon or Nikon?

They're both good — way better than Sony or Panasonic or others that don't even make real DSLRs.

My epistle yesterday is that I just don't get how some people will sit around and whine about Nikon doing something wrong, as if there is no other way around the problem. Some deer just see those headlights coming and freeze; but if what's coming down the road isn't good for you, you need to jog to the right and get what is good for you.

If you think the D600 isn't any good, don't whine about it; vote with your dollars and upgrade to the 6D instead.

The D600 is the best digital full-frame ever made by Nikon. The 6D, 5D III and 5D II are better, but if you're stuck on Nikon get the D600. If you're moving up to full frame from Nikon DX, don't think that the D600 or D800 are your choices; you'll want to replace any DX lenses you thought you were going to use, so you may as well move to Canon.

My point is we always have choices. If Nikon makes oily sensors, don't waste your breath circulating petitions, do the American thing and buy something better instead.

14 September 2013, Saturday

So get the 6D

Worry-warts who don't even have a D600 keep
asking me about dust in my D600. Nope, not seen it, and if I did, I'd
send it back under warranty — so
who cares? Nikon fixed the charger and checked my D800 all
under warranty, so if there's a problem, no problem. If you want a D600,
just get one.

The real question is why bother with Nikon when Canon is so far ahead?
Dust is the least of our issues. Offshore manufacture, a bizarre catalog
of lenses from different eras of technology only
partly compatible with each other and indifferent customer service
are bigger reasons to walk away from Nikon in favor of Canon — and the
6D is such a better camera, too. Canon makes almost everything domestically
in Japan, all their EF lenses made since 1987 are 100% compatible with
all their cameras, 35mm and digital,
and Canon's customer service is always tops.

The only reason I own my D600 and D800 are to test Nikon lenses
of every era, and to shoot my ancient AI-s lenses on digital for fun.
When I actually want to take pictures as opposed to just
play with cameras, I always grab my 5D
Mark III.

If you're moving to full-frame, Nikon lost it years ago. Just get the Canon 6D (or 5D
Mark III in place of the clumsy D800)
and you'll be so much better off. You have to buy all-new lenses for
full-frame anyway, so why go backwards into Nikon?

DX lenses work poorly on full frame. All you get is less than half the
resolution, and your finder is cropped down to something tiny — eliminating
the reasons you wanted to move to full-frame in the first place. If you
have to start over, you may as well start over right.

I have to laugh: I own all these cameras and paid full price like everyone
else. I use them all every day in my work, and yes, my 5D Mk III is
clearly the best, with the 6D almost as good, and far ahead of Nikon.
It's not just the cameras, but the organizations and support behind them,
too.

So while some of the more squeamish think there's some kind of conspiracy
behind me not whining about sensor oil I don't have, the real answer
is forget the D600 and step up to the 6D. It may change in 2 years when
the next round of full frame cameras come out, bit right now, it's Canon
for full-frame. They invented the full-frame DSLR for crying out loud,
and today, the original
5D still cranks out amazing images for about
$600 used. Honestly, the original 5D makes fantastic images, and
if yo don't mind a smaller LCD and balkier ergonomics, try one and you'll
be hooked if you haven't tried Canon before. Try the Canon
50/1.8 , one of their sharpest lenses, brand-new
for $125 on your used
5D, and
you'll be hooked for a total of only about $700.

Even though
Canon and Nikon's USA headquarters are less than a half mile away
from each other in Melville, NY and their newest breakthrough cameras in
years come out within a few days of each other, most people think they
are two very different companies.

Even more unique are the
Powerhouse adapter and cable holders. I've been using a smaller one on all my trips to hold all my chargers and power cables, and now this new series is out in more sizes. I need a bigger one; I have a lot of chargers and cables for everything!

My Canon 70D's video autofocus is the best yet from a DSLR. No, it's nowhere near as fast as it is for SLR still shots, but as video goes, it's the first I've used that does a decent job of tracking reasonable motion.

Here's a sample live autofocus video clip (640x480, 52 MB MOV file). It looks harsh because I had the saturation cranked to +1, which is too much for people video, but otherwise I'm astounded at how smooth it looks as shot in whatever light was there. My 6-year-old did it all, and the 70D did an awesome job of identifying our faces, locking-on and focusing. The aperture varied, looking to be about f/2.8-f/8 most of the time, shot with the Canon 50mm f/1.8.

I would never sacrifice fundamental quality to gain a few fluff features. Core quality always matters for every shot, while features like slightly closer focusing or VR or IS rarely are used.

If cash is tight, buy the simpler model of the top brand; never spend money just to get more fluff from a crappier brand.

2.) Square Trade Warranties aren't

I buy many things from total strangers over eBay. Most of these things are at least 10 years old.

Often the system spams me with bogus warranty offers from Square Trade. Square Trade cheerfully will sell me a warranty offering 5-day repair or cash-out and all sorts of other promises, and makes it easy to buy this warranty and pay them.

They refer to you sending them the money for which they ask as a "mistaken" purchase, and will refund what you paid for the bogus warranty if you catch them when your item breaks. Is this a scam? I'm not a lawyer, but I would think of they take my money in good faith on their solicitation and I then have a failure, that they are obligated to pay-out in full for the repair or refund; simply refunding the much smaller cost of the warranty shouldn't release them from their liability.

Ignore these people. As far as I know, these solicitations are sent through the eBay system automatically, not by the sellers of these items. More details.

If it's not printed, it's not a photo. If all you have is digital files, you may as well forget about your photos ever being seen again. It's easy to upload hundreds of photos and have them ready at Costco by the time you get over there. Costco, at least all the ones I use, prints on real Fuji Crystal Archive paper, which easily ought to last at least 50 to 100 years.

I deliberately grabbed my X100S instead of my 5D Mark III or new Canon 70D simply because for people pictures, the X100S is the world's best digital camera — and who wants to lug around an SLR?

It's worth about $10,000 to $20,000, and the seller is accepting offers, so if you want one, make an offer now while you still can. The instant the seller accepts any of the offers, it's gone.

The 6mm AI is fairly useless. Any common 8mm circular fisheye is more useful because it has more magnification, and if you're shooting a DSLR with Live View, I prefer the far smaller 8mm f/8 fisheye (thanks, Bert!) because it's much, much smaller and has the same picture quality. You only need the huge AI and AI-s versions if you're shooting 35mm film and need SLR viewing.

Today, Live View makes the huge old AI circular fisheyes obsolete, and now makes the even older mirror-lockup fisheyes the go-to lenses. (On cameras like the D7100 without mirror lockup, don't tell anyone, but I push up the mirror with my finger as I mount it.)

The 6mm really is for collectors who already have a 13mm f/5.6, and need to own the best of the best. Just like LEICAs today, the 6mm is more for for pride of ownership than actual photography — except in the sciences where the 6mm is used to measure and record things like cloud and sky cover.

The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. eBay is always a gamble, but all the other places always have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.